CHAPTER 10

"Miguel, you're really friends with that gringo?" Manuel asked him after Johnny left.

That question sent Miguel into a whirlwind of thought. At that moment, he questioned, was he really friends with Johnny? Sure, he used to be, but he wasn't anymore. In the past year, since his injury, he had been put through the absolute wringer with his injury and Johnny knew that. He had been there beside Miguel the whole time, so knew how much it had affected him, and knew how much the tournament meant to him, meant to everyone. A real sensei, at least in Miguel's eyes, puts his students first, especially when the backlash of losing the tournament wouldn't affect him personally, but would affect all of the teenagers. If Cobra Kai won the tournament and stayed open, their army of assholes would terrorise them for as long as they were in the Valley. A small part of Miguel didn't even believe the words when he thought them. They all sounded so wildly insane! I mean in what world does karate lead to all of this chaos?! He knew the answer: in their world it did, and the only way to put the chaos to bed was to win the tournament. The smart, logical thing to do would be to find a way to settle differences with Mr. Larusso and work together with him. During the short time they had merged dojos, they had seen massive growth in their karate. If they had continued like that all the way until the tournament, 100% they could've won it. But they weren't, because Johnny had thrown their 'best interests' through a window, and now was only concerned with a stupid rivalry with Larusso. And the saddest part?! Had Eagle-Fang and Miyagi-Do combined dojos and combined their points for the skills competition, along with Hawk's win, they would've beaten Cobra Kai anyways! They would've had enough points for even if Tory won the girls' final, their side to win by 3 points. But noooo… Johnny had to have such a fierce rivalry with Larusso that he couldn't suck it up and have the balls to do something he didn't want to do. All that talk about life not handing everything to you and having to work hard to succeed at something, lessons Johnny had taught him that Miguel used to hold so dear to him, meant nothing to him anymore. Johnny had been a hypocrite, and it had enlightened Miguel to his bullshit. Johnny had shaped Miguel so much over the past two years, almost like he had written directly onto Miguel's soul. But with every passing day, Miguel could feel that writing fading away. As he saw the immature child his sensei had been over the past 6 months, he felt more and more of his allegiance to the man falling away, in its place anger setting in. A sensei is supposed to protect his students! Do what's best for them! Not push the injured one so far when he clearly wasn't well enough to fight! Miguel was lucky that it was just a badly pulled muscle because he knew it could have been so much worse. And Johnny wouldn't have noticed either, as he was too blinded by his fucking rivalry with Mr. Larusso to see it.

Eventually, Miguel looked up at his father and shook his head.

"No." He murmured quietly. "No, I'm not…"

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Robby and Johnny arrived back at their motel room, extremely deflated and defeated. Things looked really, really bleak for them, to say the least. As Johnny had seen Miguel for the first time in the tournament and he reflected and stewed on it afterwards, he had a grave realisation. He had been wrong. Miguel wasn't being brainwashed, or manipulated, or being held against his will. Miguel was angry. So angry. And he hadn't come to Mexico to go find his father. Just as much as that, he had come to Mexico to get away from all of them. Nothing they could do or say would get Miguel back, because he was so worked up that whatever they said would go in one ear and out the other. The only possible chance of Miguel possibly coming back was if he got over the anger himself and managed to put it aside. It was an extremely frustrating situation for Johnny, as it was one that he had little to no control in. The more he tried to pull Miguel back, the further away Miguel would move himself and the likelihood of him coming back would be so much lower. That being said, Johnny couldn't just sit around and let Miguel stay in the custody of a psychopath. He had absolutely no idea what to do next, so he decided to call Carmen for some advice. He told her about everything that had happened, everything the pair had exchanged with each other, everything Johnny had gathered from meeting Miguel's dad for a few brief moments. However, when he was done talking and Carmen replied with her response, Johnny was shocked to hear what she said.

"I think you shouldn't approach him again." Carmen murmured quietly into the phone. Johnny nearly dropped his phone in surprise as he double checked he had even heard her correctly.

"I'm sorry, what?" Johnny stammered. Carmen sighed.

"Look, you did all you could. You told Miguel that everyone back home is there for him if he wants to come back. But by the sounds of it, he wasn't interested just yet. Nothing else you can really do."

"But… but… his father…" Johnny stammered. Carmen nodded.

"Look, what are you going to do, Johnny? You going to kidnap Miguel and carry him back here, kicking and screaming? You going to beat the living crap out of him? Because if you do, neither you nor Miguel are going to make it out of Juarez alive, and even if you do, Miguel will never forgive you and you know that. He needs to go on whatever journey his heart needs."

"But it's really dangerous, and…"

"Miguel can handle himself." Carmen reassured him, smiling faintly at her boyfriend. "You taught him well."

Johnny shook his head.

"No, no, no, I don't think even Miguel's going to be able to fight his way out of any of these situations. I mean I was going to try, but in less than 5 seconds, there was a gun on me."

Carmen let out an audible gulp of fear, but she forced herself to take a deep breath.

"Yeah, and learning from someone who will pick a fight with literally anyone can help a great deal too. Helps them realise which fights they can use their fists with, and which fights they have to talk their way out of or run their way out. I'm sure Miguel's seen you enough with your rivalry with Daniel Larusso to know that not every conversation should be escalating into a fight like yours do."

Johnny nodded and looked down.

"I know. I just, I… I feel like I'm leaving him out in the cold if I give up." Johnny murmured.

"You're not though, Johnny. I'm sure Miguel will come through eventually and come back home. He just needs to spend this time with his father so he doesn't have that question mark over that part of his life anymore. I'm sure as a father yourself you can understand how important that is for a boy, reaching out and connecting with an estranged father."

"Yeah, I… I know." Johnny mumbled. This was incredibly tough. Every fiber of his being said for him to attack, go in guns blazing and drag Miguel out of there. But if the past year with his relationship with Robby had taught him anything, it was that you can lead a horse to water but you can't force it to drink. When Robby had come to his apartment a few months ago threatening Hawk, Johnny would've been more than happy to invite him in for dinner, but he wasn't going to weep and sob and beg Robby to come back to him. He was trying, genuinely trying, to have a relationship with his son but at a certain point, he knew that he had done all he could to convince him and it would be up to Robby whether he wanted to take him up on it or not. To a certain extent, it was the same here. Miguel was in the hands of a dangerous man, just like Kreese and Silver, but one who was unlikely to physically hurt him. That being said, like Robby in Cobra Kai, Miguel was too far in for Johnny to verbally convince him to come back. It would be all up to him to come back to L.A whenever he was ready. And that method had clearly worked. Robby had eventually seen that Johnny only wanted the best for him, and eventually did leave Cobra Kai and come back. Miguel would do the same with his father, Johnny was sure of it. He'd realise his father didn't really have his best interest at heart and would turn right back around and leave. It was still damn hard though for him to sit around and wait.

"Well thank you for at least trying to get Miguel back. I really appreciate it, and I'm sure he did too. Why don't you stay in Juarez tonight and then think about coming back to L.A tomorrow?" Carmen suggested.

"Yeah, sure. We'll do that." Johnny agreed. Carmen smiled at him.

"Alright, my love. Well I need to run to the bathroom. Still have that annoying stomach bug. But I'll talk to you tomorrow morning, okay?"

Carmen hung up the phone moments later and when Johnny moved the phone away from his ear, it was Robby's turn to pick up his phone and dial a number. Johnny managed to hear the conversation Robby was having with a voice that he instantly recognised as Sam's on the other side of the room. Robby had seen about 32 missed calls and a hundred messages from her number screaming at him for updates on how things were going, so he finally picked up the phone and called her to let her know. She was less than pleased to hear their game plan.

"So, what? You're just giving up?!" Sam exclaimed, angrily. Robby sighed.

"Look, Sam. We tried. He wanted to stay. He's a grown-ass man. He can make his own choices. There's nothing more we can do."

"Bullshit!" Sam shouted at him. "Just tell him that his father is manipulating him!"

Robby chuckled, shaking his head, thinking back to the time when he was at Cobra Kai. When he couldn't see who he was becoming until it was far too late.

"Sam, it's not that easy, you know, when you're being manipulated to see it. No number of people telling you it's happening makes you believe that it's happening. You have to physically see it with your own eyes." Robby informed her.

"So make him see it!" Sam shrieked, slightly hysterically. In the past 24 hours, she had practically been rebounding off the walls in a ball of nerves and fear about what was going on, fuming that her parents wouldn't let her go down there and talk to Miguel herself.

"Once again, not that easy, Sam." Robby grumbled tiredly. It had been a long day and the last thing he needed that night was to be yelled at by his ex-girlfriend. "He needs to want to come ba…"

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Robby winced at the sudden loud beep tone on his phone and realised that Sam had hung up on him and he rolled his eyes, before dialling the number of someone he actually wanted to talk to, Tory. Not his self-centered, annoying, pamped ex-girlfriend.

Meanwhile, back in L.A, Sam threw her phone down onto her bed as hard as she could, so hard that it bounced off her mattress and off the side of her bed. However, her phone never ended up hitting the ground, as it ended up landing in her open, fully-packed hand luggage. As she reached into the bag to pick up her phone, she found her fingers reaching for the bag zipper, closing it shut after her and then picking it up. She nodded to herself. It was time. She knew that if anyone could convince Miguel to come back, it was her. She needed to be there…